TCB Feb. 24, 2016 — Don's linear equation

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com Feb. 24 – Mar. 1, 2016

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Roy Cooper’s stealth campaign PAGE 8

Tequila!

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Spellin’ fella PAGE 26

Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016

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A tough ticket

by Brian Clarey

22 UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

15 It Just Might Work: Crash the Republican Party 15 Fresh Eyes: When healthcare wasn’t taboo

FUN & GAMES 26 First monthly Wake County spelling bee

COVER

GAMES

16 Don’s linear equation

27 Jonesin’ Crossword

NEWS

CULTURE

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

8 Roy’s liability 12 Democrats in District 58

20 Food: An everyday café 21 Barstool: Tequila!

22 Music: Hip hop on the verge 24 S&S: Ruby Slipper kicks through a glass ceiling

28 Battleground Avenue, Greensboro

OPINION 14 Editorial: Tricky election math 14 Citizen Green: A better map

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Surrendering the box

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m getting the pieces together. Eventually it’s gonna be a pretty picture.

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It’s early for the rock stars — 9 a.m. — and the guys from Big Head Todd & the Monsters seem a little cobwebby when they come into the vestibule of the plant.

But here at Cone Mills White Oak Mill, the day has been going on since night.

It’s a rare thing, to take a tour of this plant, which has ben making the best denim in the world for more than a century. I’ve been trying to get inside for years, and take in the platoon of Draper fly-shuttle looms — dinosaurs of iron and rubber and wood — that have been hauled back into active duty for the vintage selvedge denim they turn out. And I’ve been invited to tag along on the rock-star tour.

“For denim aficionados, this is Mecca,” says Ken Kunberger, president and CEO of International Textile Group, the parent company of Cone Mills. “This is your ’68 Mustang, your old Harley, your Les Paul.”

Frontman Todd Mohr, whose head is actually of a quite reasonable size, gets the picture.

I’m sort of at a loss. Of course, I know who Big Head Todd is, but I took a pass on popular music in the ’90s, unless you count “The Thong Song,” so I’m not as enamored of the guys in the band as, say, Kunberger, who’s giving off the vibe of a serious fanboy — unless he’s always this enthusiastic, a real possibility with these CEO types.

But I’m digging the facility. A room the size of a neighborhood block where 400 individual white, cotton threads cross the space to be gathered in a rope; it looks like a spiderweb factory. A worker deftly separating indigo threads into a comb five feet long. The assembling, dissembling, reassembling of the threads, which can be fed into the modern It’s a rare thing, to take machines, which put out a tour of this plant. a loose weave in a wide swath, or those magnificent Draper looms.

A TV-crew scrum occupies the aisle on the factory floor that separates the old machines from the new ones, that go about their milling with relative placidity in relation to the vintage jobbers, 51 of them set in a grid, that give a slight trampoline bounce to the wooden factory floor.

The denim spools out a yard wide, three strands of indigo to one of white cotton, held in place with a red selvedge stitch. The only other place I’ve seen one of these is in the Greensboro Historical Museum.

Big Head Todd’s bassist, Rob Squires, is suitably impressed with the denim museum upstairs, another fascinating piece of local history closed off to the public. And he, along with the other members of the band, accept pairs of bespoke jeans made with Cone Mills Denim and with the band’s logo stamped onto the inside of the pockets. But still.

“We’ve got some fans in NASA,” he tells me. “We got to like, look inside the space shuttle.”

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016

CITY LIFE February 24 – March 1

by Joanna Rutter

ALL WEEKEND Ruby Slipper Fringe @ Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts (W-S) If you missed the first weekend, don’t worry, you still have a chance to catch this unique festival in Winston until Sunday afternoon. Female artists from North Carolina and beyond showcase spoken-word poetry, sculpture, and other new or in-process works of art.

Come prepared to give feedback in the artist talkbacks. The festival is free; read more in our Culture section or visit rubyslipperfringe.com

Dixie Swim Club @ Centennial Station Arts Center (HP) This Southern comedy presented by High Point Community Theatre explores the nature of female friendships; five women who met on a college swim team get together every August at the Outer Banks to catch up. The play spies on four of those weekends as they meddle in each other’s lives.

Get tickets at hpct.net.

WEDNESDAY A Conversation on Policing and Race @ the Carolina Theater (GSO), 7 p.m.

Michelle Alexander, civil rights lawyer and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, visits Greensboro to discuss her book, which “challenges the civil rights community, and all of us, to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America,” says the event page on Facebook. Her timing and her topic couldn’t be more perfect approaching the March 15 primary election. The event is already sold out, but you can live-stream it at www.fusionfilms.org/livestream.

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THURSDAY Caleb Caudle Carolina Ghost album release @ the Garage (W-S), 8 p.m.

Step aside, hipsters: the newest up-andcoming act in the Triad happens to be a good ol’ country boy. With the release of his upcoming album, Carolina Ghost, gaining national attention, one could worry he’s too big for his boots, but Caudle’s warm voice and honky-tonk hooks affirm that the hype is well-deserved. And gosh darn it, if his track “Piedmont Sky” isn’t just the perfect song for driving west on I-40 on a sunny afternoon.

Jack the Radio opens for Caudle; get tickets and more info at the-garage.ws.

SUNDAY

Community mural meeting @ the People’s Perk (GSO), 10 a.m.

The February community meeting of the Greensboro Mural Project will report on in-process indoor murals at New Garden Friends Meeting, Gillespie Elementary and Irving Park Elementary. Newcomers are welcome, says the Facebook event page, and do bring mural ideas if you’ve got ’em. Check out greensboromuralproject.com for more info.

Black Heritage Service @ High Point University (HP), 4 p.m.

Hosted by HPU’s Black Cultural Awareness Club, this year’s Heritage Service’s theme is Who We Are and Why Our Lives Matter. The service includes dance and spoken-word pieces, along with performances from the Genesis Gospel Choir, the Otesha Cultural Arts Ensemble of Winston-Salem, and UNCG’s Black Box Project. Details can be found at highpoint.edu.

triad-city-beat.com

FRIDAY

MONDAY

SATURDAY

Refugee resettlement training session @ New Garden Friends Meeting (GSO), 10:30 a.m.

NC African Services Coalition provides a training session for faith communities and concerned citizens around the process of refugee resettlement and co-sponsorship of refugees, as Guilford County anticipates receiving around 1,000 refugees from around the world in 2016, as TCB reported in January. For more information, email Cindy Knul at cknul@yahoo. com.

Triad City Beat Turns Two @ Preyer Brewing Company (GSO), 7 p.m.

Come celebrate Triad City Beat’s second birthday with us! Cherished longtime and newly minted readers alike are warmly invited to raise a glass to two years of taking care of business in the Triad. We want to ring in our terrible twos with you, the readers and advertisers who made it all possible. Attire and atmosphere will be casual, provided everyone behaves themselves. (Also, yes, thanks for asking, what we’ve wished for on our birthday are for donations to our investigative fund.)

6th annual Dancing with the High Point Stars @ High Point Country Club (HP), 7 p.m.

Communities in Schools presents Dancing with the High Point Stars is back for its sixth year. Those “stars” include Busta Brown of WXII 12 News and Angela McGill of HP’s Housing Authority. Three winners will be awarded at the event, for most votes, best performance and best costume. Tickets to the event, which benefit CIS and include hors d’oeuvres, three drinks and one vote, can be purchased at highpointdancingwiththestars.com.

Unsafe Place Comedy Showcase @ Krankies Coffee (W-S), 10 p.m.

An evening of standup comedy featuring NC up-and-comers Cabell Wilkinson, Zo Meyers and Reid Pegram. The highlight will inevitably be Charlotte’s Blayr Nias, who has appeared on the Fox show “Laughs,” was named the best comedian of 2014 by Charlotte magazine, and is known for her observational comedy about mental health and race. There’s a $5 cover, and for more details you can visit krankiescoffee.com.

Completely Hollywood @ Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance (W-S), 8 p.m.

The perfect follow-up to the previous evening Academy Awards, this event promises to be just as ridiculous.

Starring Peggie Kaan, Eric Dowdy, and Tyler Carlson, 187 movies will be packed into just under two hours, “condensing every cliché from every movie ever made.” Could either be exhausting or amazing. It’ll also show on Tuesday night. For tickets, go to wstheatrealliance.org.

TUESDAY

Democratic Gubernatorial Debate @ High Point University (HP), 7 p.m.

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and Time Warner Cable News, Democratic candidates for North Carolina governor will face off a mere two weeks before the primary. A bit of background: Attorney General Roy Cooper served in the General Assembly from 1987 to 2000 before being elected to his current position. Spaulding was also elected to the state House before serving on the state Board of Transportation. Cooper is polling at 45 percent against Spaulding’s 10 percent, according to a recent Public Policy.

Whoever wins the primary will go up against incumbent Pat McCrory in November. “Capital Tonight” anchor Tim Boyum will moderate. For free tickets, go to highpoint.edu.

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Don’t stop with Aycock renaming Trustees at UNCG finally did the right thing by renaming Aycock Auditorium.

UNCG Auditorium sounds just fine. The auditorium was originally named after Charles Aycock, who was a white supremacist. I personally don’t think that buildings, tunnels, roads and bridges should be named after white men from the past because many, if not all, of these men were sexist, racist, bigots.

Historians say that we shouldn’t judge men of the past by our standards. I disagree.

Now when will our country remove slave owners, and American Indian killers, from our currency? I believe that George Washington, who was a white supremacist, should be removed from the $1 bill. George Washington owned black people, and killed American Indians. Why should he be honored?

I suppose that he did some good things as president. Can you name some of these good things? Imagine if Washington had addressed Congress, and the Supreme Court, and stated that slavery was un-Christian and should be abolished. Imagine if he had said that women, and non-whites, should have the same legal and political rights as white men. If he had done these things then he would have deserved all the honors that he has received over the years. But he didn’t do these things.

If individuals, and institutions, want to honor dead politicians then I think they should honor people that gave more rights to more people instead of honoring men who denied rights to their fellow human beings. Sexist, racist, bigots should not be honored.

Chuck Mann, Greensboro Debating our form of government I started to read the article “Fresh Eyes” [“Subverting education for democracy in the UNC System”; by Lewis Pitts & Spoma Jovanovic; Feb. 3, 2016] but stopped when I got to the part that describes the type government we have in the USA. If these supposed intellectuals don’t even know what type of government we have, why would I pay any attention to anything else they had to say?

HR Danzis Jr., High Point Making healthcare comprehensible Thanks for the great article [“New health clinic targets underserved population”; by

Eric Ginsburg; Feb. 17, 2016]. It takes talent to make a readable tale out of the information that was thrown at you. You’ve helped a good organization.

Tom Corrigan, via email Roy must debate I just read your “Letter to Roy Cooper” [Feb. 17, 2016]. Thanks for publishing it. I agree with the sentiment about the decision to not debate in High Point! As a new resident of Greensboro, I enjoy your publication.

Wayne Plummer, Greensboro A crosswalk to the 21st Century Something as simple as a crosswalk can be solved through tactical urbanism [“Citizen Green: A brewpub might be the catalyst High Point needs”; by Jordan Green; Feb. 15, 2016].

I believe High Point had this conversation with Andrés Duany back in 2014. It might not be top-down investments but grassroots creativity that help paint the portrait of a city that is essentially a blank canvas.

Brian Rosa, via triad-city-beat.com You ain’t from around here, are you?

Well Eric, sounds like you are a wanna start trouble type of guy to write something you don’t know about [“Barstool: A secretive clubhouse”; by Eric Ginsburg; Feb. 17, 2016]. Willie’s is a very friendly local bar that just doesn’t like people who try and get in people’s business. Try writing on a subject you know about and stay away from things you don’t. Meaning your opinion is just that — an opinion!

Wendy Cheek Stack, via triad-city-beat.com Eric, you are either brave or just a little stupid. Do a little research before you go knocking on doors. If you are from this area you know who Willie is, just like the dude said. You also know that you are safe when you mind your own business. I have family and friends that frequent that old building although I never had, but if I find myself in a bad place in that neighborhood, that is where I will run for shelter.

Diana Wolf, via triad-city-beat.com

3 meditations on homelessness

by Joanna Rutter

1. The art of conversation

Sitting near a mural that says “Tax the rich” in the Mission, he asks for quarters. (Has he figured this is easier than dollars?) I have three and give them to him. He does not have the luxury of starting the conversation with anything other than his urgent need for a bed that night. I realize I wish he did, so I could be more comfortable.

We speak of cross-country bus trips and he keeps the conversation going. It seems he could talk to me forever and not mind at all; I have more time, more money, but I want to leave.

“I have to go, it was nice meeting you.”

He looks disappointed in me. I am, too.

2. A runaway dollar

In San Francisco, at the intersection, a man asks cars for money. “Help. God bless,” his sign says. My dad fishes a dollar bill out of his pocket and hands it to my youngest brother. Then, a bit of coaching. “When we pull up to the stop sign, hand him the bill.”

We are not alone in our charity: A car with black windows pulls up next to us, not slowing to a complete stop. A hand comes from the darkness with a dollar bill between fingers. There is a miscommunication, or carelessness, and the hand lets go of the dollar before the man is able to grab it, and it is swept up in a gust of wind.

The man chases the fluttering bill, which twists and spins in the air away from him, as if whatever his original struggle was is not enough, while the cars at the intersection wait. After all, it is his living.

Meanwhile, my brother is at the window with his dollar. Eventually: “We don’t want to hold up traffic,” my father says.

I wish for something solid to give him that wouldn’t blow away — or simply for a windless day where nothing would be snatched away from him.

3. How not to say no

“Please, do you have anything to spare — ” “No.” She hears it a hundred times a day on Broadway, but it’s still the coldest the word has ever sounded coming from my mouth.

An icy, uninvolved snap. Not hard to swallow, no aftertaste and, most of all, it causes me no pain.

And I think: It could be that simple for me, every time.

Sunday Service @ 10:30am

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triad-city-beat.com

Best Triad city to raise kids?

Someone recently suggested that Triad City Beat should have more kid/family-oriented content. Here ya go.

80 70

Eric Ginsburg: I don’t have kids, so I really shouldn’t presume to know. But the idea of Say Yes providing free college education to grads from Guilford County Schools makes Greensboro seem more appealing. (Sure, this applies to High Point too, but the two cities are hardly on equal footing in any other arena.) I grew up in a suburb and hated the lack of available activities, often choosing to kill time at the mall a town over. Lucky for kids around here, Winston-Salem and Greensboro are teeming with cultural life.

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Opinion

40 30 20

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Greensboro

7%

High Point

Dioli’s Italian Market

Fun & Games

Winston-Salem

43%

Culture

50%

Cover Story

Readers: Our readers narrowly chose Winston-Salem (50 percent), though nobody took the time to explain why. Greensboro didn’t lag far behind with 43 percent, but High Point… well, High Point did about as good as could be expected in this contest I guess, nabbing the remaining 7 percent.

New question: Which Republican presidential candidate should win the party’s nomination? Vote at triad-city-beat.com.

News

Jordan Green: Why, Greensboro, of course!

No, but seriously, I live in Greensboro and I have a 2-year-old. We live less than a half a block away from the Greensboro Arboretum, and at the other end there’s a playground that has one of the most multicultural demographics in the city. For more ambitious outings, there’s the Greensboro Cultural Center, the children’s museum and the Greensboro Science Center. So, only from personal experience I would have to say Greensboro is a pretty awesome place to raise a child. But, of course, I know Winston-Salem has the same level

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Up Front

Brian Clarey: I know many wonderful parents who are raising their children in Winston-Salem and High Point, but I can only speak from my own experience and say that Greensboro has been very good to my family. We’ve found a house we can afford — and careers that enable us to afford it, schools that our kids actually like and enough things for us to do that we can never keep up. My children have had great opportunities here, and though they will likely want to move away as soon as they’re able, just like everybody else who grew up here they may come back to raise their own families — or to take care of their ailing, foul-mouthed father.

of amenities, from parks and playgrounds to a children’s museum and SciWorks, with the latter two planning to merge. High Point has affordability going for it, and a pretty good system of greenways and parks, I believe, although it lags in sidewalks. So the true answer is that all three cities are great places to raise kids.

by Anthony Harrison

All She Wrote

deli meat.

Next came the cannoli.

I split it in half, and Joanna’s eyes widened with excitement.

“I come from New York, so I have high cannoli expectations,” she remarked.

We both agreed this example lived up to our standards and promptly exceeded them.

The pastry was sturdy, but flaky and a touch buttery.

And the filling, dotted with dark chocolate chips, was a mascarpone with a rich, nearly cookie-dough texture, all while retaining luscious creaminess.

I almost immediately regretted my selfless gesture to share the dessert.

Next time, I’ll be sure to bring one home for personal enjoyment.

Shot in the Triad

I asked the guy working behind the counter what sandwiches were the most popular.

“My favorite is the fresh mozzarella,” he said. They serve that sandwich with fresh tomato and basil, and a little balsamic vinaigrette on house-made focaccia.

“People also like the Chicago-style hot beef, traditional salami and the Jewish pastrami,” he added.

I adore pastrami. I had to try it. Joanna coveted the cannoli, so I got one of those, too.

It was one of the finest deli sandwiches I’ve had in the Triad. I’m still unsure what made the pastrami specifically Jewish, but the perfectly seasoned meat blended magically with the slight heat of Dijon mustard and mildly sweet crunch of red onion.

But the bread made it truly special. It was the softest rye I’ve ever eaten, but it still had nice resistance to it and that wonderful, slightly sour note that complements nearly any

Games

Winston-Salem never ceases to surprise me. And while my hometown of Greensboro has its share of fine delis, I may have found a new favorite.

A few weeks ago, I helped Triad City Beat intern Joanna Rutter on her distribution route, and we had to stop by Dioli’s Italian Market, one of a few locations on Reynolda Road. It was past lunchtime, but I was starving, having eaten only Cheerios for breakfast. On this day, I found myself in the mood for a sandwich.

When you’re hungry, any and all options seem tasty. In that, Dioli’s overwhelmed me a little bit.

Not only did they feature many delectable sandwiches like a classic muffaletta or hero sub. Desserts in both traditional and fusion-style presentations beckoned from behind their glass display cases — cannoli and sfogliatelle sat alongside tiramisu cheesecake.

I wanted everything.

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

8

NEWS

Roy Cooper’s gubernatorial campaign skirts race and justice issues Opponent Ken Spaulding open to excessive force database and other proposed reforms

by Jordan Green

The banner hanging from the stage in Dillard Auditorium on the campus of Winston-Salem State University on Feb. 18 said everything: “NC Attorney General Roy Cooper: Kalvin Michael Smith’s Black Life Matters.”

About 125 college students from Winston-Salem State University, a historically black institution that is part of the UNC System, gathered with peers from Wake Forest University, a predominantly white school across the city, for a rally demanding that Cooper file a motion to vacate Smith’s sentence.

Cooper is a moderate Democrat running for governor this year on a lawand-order image burnished through 12 years serving as the state’s attorney general. Smith is a 44-year-old black man who was convicted of brutally beating a white store clerk in Winston-Salem in 1995. Subsequently, a review by the Silk Plant Forest Citizen Review Committee, which was empaneled by the city, found there was no evidence that Smith was even at the scene of the crime and stated that they did not have confidence in the police investigation leading to his conviction. A second review by retired Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker gave credence to the Silk Plant Forest Citizen Review Committee’s findings and took the position that Smith deserves a new trial.

Corrine Sugino, a Wake Forest University student, suggested during the rally that Cooper’s unwillingness to get involved with Smith’s case revealed a racial double standard, considering his intervention in the Duke lacrosse case, in which he dropped charges against three white athletes falsely accused of rape by a black woman in 2007. Cooper highlights the saga on the bio page of the website for the attorney general’s office, which lists among his “initiatives”: “Taking on tough cases, including the Duke lacrosse case.”

“If he’s willing to intervene for the three white Duke lacrosse players, he must be willing to intervene for Kalvin,” Sugino said. “And if he’s not, then we

will make him care because he should not be a leader in this society if he’s not willing to intervene for the people who are most disenfranchised by this society.”

Widely regarded as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary and likely challenger to Republican incumbent Pat McCrory in the November general election, Cooper has run a low-profile campaign since declaring last fall. His campaign website hasn’t been updated since October, when he officially announced his election bid, and includes no information about his platform or position on the issues. And he has stated that he will not participate in a JORDAN GREEN March 1 debate with opponent Bishop Todd Fulton calls on Attorney General Roy Cooper to intervene in the case of Kalvin Michael Smith (seen in cardboard effigy).

Ken Spaulding hosted by the League of Women Voters at ston-Salem, said Cooper’s hands are not track record as attorney general has left High Point University. bound in this case. many African-American leaders across Jaylon Herbin, a junior majoring in “It is true that at the end of the day North Carolina less than enthusiastic political science at Winston-Salem State, it is a judge’s decision as to whether to about his candidacy. made an even more explicit connection grant relief,” said Wright, who is a for“Many of us are very, very concerned between the Smith case and Cooper’s mer federal prosecutor who specializes about the positions he’s taken with a political aspirations at the rally. in the rules of sentencing and post-connumber of issues recently,” said the “We will get Attorney General Roy viction relief. “But it’s also true that the Rev. Anthony Spearman, a Greensboro Cooper’s attention,” he said. “We need attorney general can join the defendant pastor who is the third vice chair of the him to know that we are growing in and ask for the relief. If the prosecutor state NAACP. Spearman cited Cooper’s numbers. We are concerned students. and the defendant come together and refusal to retry Charlotte-Mecklenburg Mr. Cooper wants us to vote for him. ask a judge for a stay that’s often very police Officer Randall Kerrick, whose But he is not doing his job right now to powerful and persuasive.” prosecution in the death of Jonathan earn our vote. He has the power right Stephen Boyd, a professor of religion Ferrell ended in a mistrial. Kerrick fanow to give Kalvin his freedom. His life at Wake Forest University who serves on tally shot Ferrell, a black former Florida is in his hands.” the Silk Plant Forest Truth Committee A&M University football player, in 2013 Noelle Talley, Cooper’s public — not to be confused with the citizens after Ferrell staggered from a car acciinformation officer, said in an emailed review committee — said Cooper has dent and attempted to get help, promptstatement in response to the students’ thus far rebuffed entreaties from the Silk ing a confused and frightened resident demands last week: “We understand the Plant Forest Truth Committee to discuss to call 911 and report an attempted community’s concerns and we want to the Smith case with Lt. Joseph Ferrelli break-in. The jury deadlocked and a work with them on systemic issues in the and Sgt. Chuck Byrom, the two Winjudge declared a mistrial in Kerrick’s criminal justice system but at this point ston-Salem police officers who staffed case last year. Georgia Ferrell, the mothin the legal process only a court of law the city’s review of the original inveser of the slain football player, expressed can overturn Kalvin Smith’s conviction tigation, and has likewise declined to dismay about Cooper’s decision to and release him from prison.” meet with retired Assistant FBI Director not retry the case in an interview with Ron Wright, a professor at Wake Chris Swecker about the case.

WBTV News in Charlotte last August.

Forest University School of Law in WinBeyond the Smith case, Cooper’s “Cooper did not care one way or the

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

entertain proposals for change.

Most notably, before dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary following a disappointing performance in Iowa, Martin O’Malley adopted an extensive platform to reform policing and the courts. O’Malley served as governor of Maryland and, before that, as mayor of Baltimore, where riots erupted last year after Freddie Gray died in police custody. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the remaining candidates in the Democratic primary, have also made racial fairness and reform of the justice system of mainstay of their respective campaigns in response to prodding from the Black Lives Matter movement.

O’Malley called for national legislation requiring “law enforcement agencies to report data on all police-involved shootings, custodial deaths, discourtesy complaints and use of excessive force” in a universal database accessible to the public.

The Ferguson Commission, appointed by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, similarly recommended a statewide database on police use-of-force incidents for the state of Missouri. Nixon appointed the commission in the wake of the fatal shooting of Mike Brown by a Ferguson police officer in 2014. The governor sustained criticism for responding slowly to the crisis and, according to some, for abiding the police’s militarized response to protests that erupted after Brown’s death.

Spaulding, one of the two Democratic candidates for governor, said he would support a database of police useof-force incidents in North Carolina.

“I think that’s a constructive idea,” he said. “The more accurate information we have the more we do know what we’re dealing with and what has to be addressed.” The candidate added that it’s important for all citizens and elected officials to support the law-enforcement community.

Bishop Todd Fulton, president of the Ministers Alliance of Winston-Salem and Vicinity, said he led a delegation to meet with Cooper in mid-February. In addition to asking Cooper to meet with former Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker on the Kalvin Michael Smith case, Fulton said he and the pastors asked the candidate for his position on public access to police body cameras.

They’re still waiting for a response from

triad-city-beat.com

other about my child or about me, or about his family,” she said.

Spearman also expressed displeasure in Cooper’s decision to defend North Carolina’s voter ID law, which plaintiffs, including the US Justice Department, characterize as an unconstitutional effort to suppress the black and Latino vote.

“That’s a pretty good representation of the sentiment of the African-American community,” Spearman said.

A perception of not being responsive to the needs to African-American residents could prove to be politically touchy for Cooper in the run-up to the March 15 Democratic primary. African Americans comprise 41.4 percent of registered Democrats in North Carolina. But assuming his name recognition as attorney general for the past 12 years allows him to prevail in the primary, Cooper will face an entirely different political dynamic in his effort to peel conservative Democrats and independents away from McCrory in November.

Smith alluded to the racial politics surrounding his case in a videotaped interview screened at the rally last week.

“When you have organizations and ex-FBI directors investigate and bring forth information, and they don’t do anything, it’s frightening,” he said.

“Politics plays a big role in my case,” he added. “When politics supersedes what’s right, then we have a serious problem.”

Cooper did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Opponent Ken Spaulding, a lawyer and former state lawmaker in Durham, leveled a blistering critique of his primary opponent’s handling of the Smith case.

“I think the attorney general’s office should take a review and should have already taken a review of the circumstances based on the investigation that has already been done by your local government,” Spaulding said. “It’s my understanding that if you’re seeking justice, it doesn’t always mean it’s always going to be on the side of the prosecution. Justice should be blindfolded.”

While Cooper has largely remained silent on matters of racial justice, Democratic politicians in other states have embraced a criminal-justice reform agenda, or at least have been forced to

9

Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016

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Ken Spaulding

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Before he dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary, O’Malley pledged on his campaign website “to work with law enforcement, advocates and other stakeholders to establish national standards for deploying and developing technology, while protecting privacy and community access to data provided by body cameras or similar tools.”

Spaulding said he would support something similar on a statewide level.

“The overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers are doing their job and doing it well,” said Spaulding, who noted that he has represented law enforcement officers in his law practice.

“When we have situations with excessive force being use then the public and press needs to be factored into that.

It’s not anti-police. We have to make it clear to my community and the white community that misconduct is in the minority. But when incidents do occur, we cannot run away from them, because it ruins the reputation of our very good police officers.”

While North Carolina cities have avoided the unrest that overtook the St. Louis area and Baltimore in the wake of the police-involved deaths of unarmed black men, patterns of racially disparate policing in North Carolina are not dissimilar.

Black drivers in North Carolina are 75 percent more likely to be searched than whites and 43 percent more likely to be arrested, according to a report by UNC-Chapel Hill Professor Frank R. Baumgartner that was co-authored with Bayard Love, Kelsey Shoub and Derek

A. Epp. The public data that formed the basis of the report is maintained by the state Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Cooper, as a requirement of state law.

The US Justice Department’s Ferguson Report, which found that the city’s police department violated the constitutional rights of African-American residents, noted that blacks were twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops, but were “found in possession of contraband 26 percent less than white drivers, suggesting officers are impermissibly considering race as a factor when determining whether to search.”

The Baumgartner report noted a troubling parallel in North Carolina.

“Officers appear less likely to find contraband on black drivers after conducting searches based on consent or probable cause,” the report said. “This suggests that the disproportionate use of these searches on black motorists is unjustified. Indeed it is just such a disparity that the US Department of Justice points to as evidence of racial bias in the Ferguson report.”

Spaulding said the findings in the Baumgartner report are nothing new.

“There was a disparity in the arrests and also searches and seizures,” he said.

“I raised issues about it back in the ’70s, and now it’s far more symptomatic. As governor, I would have sensitivity with this because I’ve dealt with it directly.

A governor that’s had some experience can address what we need to do while recognizing there’s some bad people out there who need to be punished.”

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12

Democrats vie for District 58 seat in decisive primary

by Joanna Rutter

Candidates for state House District 58 Ralph Johnson and Amos Quick align on issues of job creation and gun control, but differ on their main platforms and their plans to reach across the aisle to the Republican majority if elected.

The March 15 primary will decide whether newcomer Rev. Amos Quick III or incumbent Ralph Johnson will secure the seat for District 58 in the state House, representing a chunky diagonal region of Greensboro from the southeast segment of the city into the West Market Street corridor. No Republican candidates filed for election.

In the 2014 primary race for District 58, similarly unchallenged by Republicans, Johnson won the seat previously occupied by Alma Adams, who left it for the 12th Congressional District. Johnson had tried before in 2010 but lost to Adams.

Since taking office in the state House in January 2015, Johnson has helped introduce legislation on safer gun storage, and has voted in favor of a handful of bills protecting concealed carry rights for judges and retired law enforcement officers. He also voted against an optout provision for magistrates who refuse to perform gay marriages.

Johnson’s record reveals he sponsored a handful of bills on raising the minimum wage (all five of which did not pass), and co-sponsored the Foster Care Family Act, which aligns state law with federal law regarding “reasonable and prudent” standards for parents.

“It’s been a tumultuous time,” Johnson said of his tenure in the Republican-controlled house. “We’ve been facing legislation that has not always, in my view, done the real will of the people.”

It’s not an ideal situation for any Democratic candidate to head into; Johnson said conversations he’s had offline with Republican colleagues often end with, “I believe you’re correct, but if I get on the floor and make that argument, they’re going to primary me.”

Johnson referred to a bill he co-sponsored authorizing the use of cameras to enforce violations for passing a school bus as an example of successful bipartisan cooperation.

“We are in the business of saving lives,” Johnson said. “This is not a harebrained scheme ... I had two Republi-

Amos Quick

Ralph Johnson

can colleagues on that bill with me. And me, a Democrat? It doesn’t matter!”

Johnson’s career in the home improvement industry and experience as co-chairman of the Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro among other community involvement, plus the term now under his belt, contrasts with his opponent’s career path.

Quick departed from his comedy career as a morning radio show host on 102 JAMZ to eventually work for the executive director at Greensboro’s Boys & Girls Club. He has served on the Guilford County School Board since 2004, and is the head pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in High Point.

“We’re really running for the seat more than against anyone else,” Quick said. “I have much respect for Johnson and for being there [in Raleigh].”

Quick plans to be on the offensive in working with Republican representatives.

“Some battles I’ll win, some battles I’ll lose, but no battles will be surrendered,” he said. “I have a willingness to fight for what I believe are common-ground fights.”

He mentioned job creation as a priority.

Quick’s plan to bring job growth involves collaborating with local universities and “harness local brainpower” to move the district out of its history of textiles and manufacturing into more modern industries such as biomedical engineering and technology.

“North Carolina used to be a leader,” he said. “We were one of the 13 stars.

Our star has fallen, and it’s time to put it back in place.”

He mentioned his experience in local education, noting that Guilford County

Schools is the largest employer in the county.

“In the recession of 2008, I was part of a group of elected officials who did not do wholesale layoffs like other districts.” Quick said.

He also said he was the board liaison for implementing Say Yes to Education, an initiative put in action in September 2015 that aims to reduce cost barriers to higher education for graduating seniors in Guilford county. Quick touted investment in education as a seed for future economic growth.

Johnson also mentioned investing in education as a priority.

“I’m concerned we’re not doing enough to assist teachers, not only with pay, but … we need to make sure

teachers have the tools they need to be prepared to work with in the classroom,” he said.

The candidates both said they want to push for more stringent background checks for gun ownership, while also saying that they support the Second Amendment.

“Taking care of North Carolinians is not a partisan belief,” Quick said. “We are burying hundreds of North Carolinians every year because we don’t have common-sense legislation in place.”

Johnson concurred.

“At the end of the day, we need to do better a job making sure the people with these weapons are checked out,” he said.

The candidates differences are more a matter of emphasis than substance.

Quick brings a passion for strengthening public schools, and a pressing issue for Johnson is moving forward with Medicaid expansion.

“If you don’t have your health, you have nothing,” he said.

He drew the example of Kentucky enacting Medicaid expansion in 2015.

Johnson said the state-level expansion was supported by Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate. (Gov. Steve Beshear expanded the state’s Medicaid program via executive order; in an October 2014 debate,

House District 58 stretches from the southeast quadrant of Greensboro into an area that includes the Friendly Center.

COURTESY IMAGE

expansion.

“Of all the issues, I’m puzzled by it,” Johnson said. “We’re one of 20 states that hasn’t accepted it yet. We have individuals in pure denial that we don’t need Medicaid, but who accept money for infrastructure. Why not at least try it?”

triad-city-beat.com

McConnell said he wanted to keep KYnect, the state insurance program, while eliminating Obamacare on a national level.)

“And it’s working!” Johnson said.

Matt Bevin, a tea party-inspired Republican who recently replaced Beshear as governor has pledged to roll back the

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14

OPINION EDITORIAL

CITIZEN GREEN

It was hard enough to handicap presidential-year elections in North Carolina when it was still a red state — a holdover from the Southern Strategy that saw registered Democrats in the state outnumber Republicans 2 to 1. We had a majority Democrat General Assembly for 100 years, but from 1968 until 2008, with an exception for the Jimmy Carter year of 1976, voted for Republicans in every presidential contest.

For most of the 2008 election, North Carolina was still considered a safe red state, almost right up until Barack Obama won it.

The Obama Effect here took the form of increased voter registration, enough to do the job in 2008, but not in 2012, when on the way to re-election he narrowly lost the state to Mitt Romney.

But Obama himself was an anomaly, galvanizing large swaths of his party in a way we hadn’t seen in presidential politics since maybe Reagan and the evangelicals. It began with the primary, which was in May and, for the first time in decades, actually made a difference as to the nomination because of that year’s drawn-out contest.

Until the week before the vote, all the major polls gave the state to Clinton in 2008, though in the end she lost by almost 15 points.

This year those same polls are all again giving the state to Hillary Clinton in the March 15 primary; High Point University has her beating Bernie Sanders by 26 points. Even the smart money at FiveThirtyEight gives Sanders just a 3 percent chance of taking the NC primary.

So it should be Clinton — at least in our state; the voters have yet to declare a clear frontrunner on the left. And the Republican primary winner, according to all the leading polls, should be Donald Trump, who scored a +9 in Elon University’s polling.

FiveThirtyEight, not technically a poll, favors Marco Rubio, giving him a 52 percent shot at NC as of last week when the candidate passed Trump. And that’s just this week’s data, subject to change at any time.

It goes to show that prognostication is getting increasingly more complicated in North Carolina, as the demographic shifts and the culture evolves. The numbers themselves keep changing too — the number of registered voters in the state dropped by 200,000 after a purge in 2015, and there are now almost as many unaffiliated voters in the state as there are registered Republicans, who themselves are starting to catch up to registered Democrats in number.

If nothing else, it’s evidence that things are changing in this state. But we will need to see the March returns before we can truly discern which way it’s going.

Taking state Rep. David Lewis at his word — that the new congressional district map adopted by the GOP-controlled General Assembly did not factor in race — one could easily conclude that the process was a brazen violation of the

by Jordan Green Voting Rights Act. I can’t believe I’m writing this but, in fact, the map appears to uphold the constitutional guarantee that African Americans hold an equal opportunity to participate in the political process, as enforced by the Voting Rights Act. Follow me through this. Since 1992, North Carolina has had two congressional districts drawn to provide black citizens with the opportunity to elect a candidate of choice — the 1st in the northeast corner of the state and the 12th running along Interstate 85 from Charlotte up to Greensboro. In 2011, the Republicans packed black voters into the two districts in an effort to keep most of the remaining districts safe for candidates of their own party. But in early February, a panel of federal judges ruled that the two minority districts were unacceptable racial gerrymanders, and ordered the legislature to redraw the map.

The new map, which will be used in a newly scheduled June 7 primary specially called for congressional races — the rest of the primary, including the presidential races, will go forward on March 15 as planned — reduces black voting-age population from 52.0 to 43.8 percent in the 1st district and from 49.6 to 35.3 percent in the 12th district.

The radical overhaul of the 12th does away with the serpentine configuration stretching up to Greensboro, with the new district instead encompassing most of urban Mecklenburg County.

The critical factor is this: In each of the two minority-influence districts, roughly 62 percent of the Democratic electorate is African American, giving black voters a clear opportunity to elect a candidate of choice in the Democratic primary. Going into the general election, the Democratic skew of the two districts virtually ensures that the party nominee will win.

There’s some evidence that within the Democratic Party, racially polarized voting is on the wane. Most dramatically, Democrats in North Carolina chose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary, and Obama went on to narrowly carry the state in the general election. More locally, Earline Parmon, who is black, easily won election in 2012 and ran unopposed in 2014 in Forsyth County’s Senate District 32, where whites hold a roughly 10 percent edge over blacks in voter registration. Meanwhile, in Guilford County’s House District 57, a Democratic electorate that is roughly two-thirds African American, favored Pricey Harrison, who is white, over Jim Kee, who is black, by a margin

Tricky election math

The new congressional map is more racially fair of 68.6 percent to 31.5 percent in the 2014 primary.

The Republican mapmakers made it plain that they drew the new map in such a way as to maximize their chances to maintain a 10-3 partisan advantage in the Congressional delegation. You couldn’t ask for a more clear admission that partisan gerrymandering essentially amounts to the party in control canceling out the wishes of voters by pre-ordaining the outcome of the election. As an indication of how absurdly rigged the system is, 51.0 percent of two-party votes were cast for Democrats in the 2012 North Carolina congressional races, while Democrats only won four of the 13 seats that year. Using a statistical algorithm to randomly redraw boundaries of the state’s congressional districts in the most compact fashion possible, a Duke University study found that Democrats would have carried seven or eight seats. While the Democrats engaged in gerrymandering when they held power, the 7-6 advantage they held was much closer to the balance of political sentiments in the state.

While the new map appears to meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, its makers could end up facing a legal challenge based on political gerrymandering. As part of the three-judge panel that ordered the General Assembly to redraw the map, Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion: “Gerrymandering may well have an expiration date as the Supreme Court has found that the term ‘legislature’ in the Elections Clause is broad enough to include independent redistricting commissions.”

In the meantime, the new map is a marked improvement.

By unpacking black voters from the 1st and 12th districts, the Republican mapmakers have, against their stated interest of maintaining partisan advantage, found themselves forced to make the remaining districts more politically competitive.

Looking at the 2010 US Senate contest between Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Elaine Marshall, the margin in which Burr prevailed over Marshall would have closed by between 2.0 and 6.4 percentage points in eight out of 10 of the Republican-leaning districts. The 5th District, stretching from Winston-Salem to Boone, becomes 3.7 percent more competitive while the 6th District, covering part of Guilford County, becomes 5.9 percent more competitive.

And in the new 13th District, which includes major portions of Greensboro and High Point, 2012 election numbers reveal the same Elaine Marshall and June Atkinson, both competent and experienced Democrats, prevailing over tea party-inspired Republican challengers by a hair.

In our reflexive disgust for everything the Republicans in Raleigh dish out to us, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the new congressional districting map is both more racially fair and politically competitive.

Crash the Republican Party

Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

tive, market-based model as the basis for the Affordable Care Act. The resulting legislation was fraught with problems, but it nevertheless expanded healthcare insurance to millions of Americans, especially low-income workers.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this paradoxical, disjointed, series of incremental policy initiatives is that both political parties supported them in some fashion. They recognized on a bipartisan basis that healthy Americans are necessary components of a thriving economy.

This is all to say that despite partisan bickering, political compromise helped to expand Medicare coverage; established Massachusetts healthcare as a successful model; and produced Obamacare with its many flaws but surprisingly effective increased coverage for the uninsured.

North Carolinians have a long history of overcoming their political differences to create a modestly progressive political economy.

Pat McCrory ran for governor as a moderate, business-oriented candidate from economically booming Charlotte. It is high time for him to pick up the mantle of his Republican predecessors, George Bush and Mitt Romney, to propel North Carolina forward with a mature and compassionate 21st Century economy.

Maybe the governor and the General Assembly don’t really care much about the welfare of these thousands of uninsured, low-wage workers. However, they surely must have concerns about our still-struggling state economy.

Twenty-five thousand new healthcare jobs and billions of mostly federal dollars will flow into our state through the Medicaid expansion.

If the loudly trumpeted Republican business ethos is to hold any real water, then McCrory and the General Assembly should step up now to enhance our still fragile economic situation.

Like Bush and Romney before them, state Republican leaders should recognize that healthcare expansion is just good business.

Most other Republican-controlled states have found a way to expand Medicaid to cover the lowest-income workers. Our state leaders might also do well to carefully consider the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn still echoing from the Gulag: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.”

William C. Crawford is a social worker and health care administrator who worked for 35 years in Medicaid.

Opinion

Much has been said about the divisive partisan gridlock reaching back 15 years or more.

However, close analysis reveals that Presidents George

by William C. Crawford W. Bush and Barack Obama both successfully prodded Congress to enact compassionate, conservative health insurance legislation that vastly expanded coverage for millions of vulnerable Americans.

Our intransigent state leaders in North Carolina would do well today to emulate some largely disregarded initiatives undertaken by prominent Republicans. Such a change of course might finally bring healthcare insurance to nearly 500,000 mostly working citizens who, up to now, have been betrayed by their governor and elected representatives.

Political scientist Charles Lindbloom once described policy development as “the science of muddling through.” His seminal 1959 essay advanced “disjointed incrementalism” as a realistic approach to changing policy through small, gradual steps. His prescient paradigm captures the essence of recent efforts by two presidents — one Republican and the other a Democrat — to move US healthcare into a realistic, 21st Century posture. These often overlooked efforts also recognize that true economic prosperity requires that we take care of workers’ healthcare needs both before and after their retirement.

George W. Bush expanded Medicare to provide prescription drug coverage to millions of economically strapped seniors. The legislation was deeply flawed because of the much maligned “doughnut hole” as well as major indefensible concessions to Big Pharma. The insurance industry reaped a windfall in new business.

Ironically, Bush pushed this plan through Congress with no provision to pay for it. This seemingly reckless choice actually helped to assure Republican support. Like it or not, Medicare prescription drug coverage has been a godsend for millions of at-risk seniors.

The notion of universal healthcare coverage had been little more than a political football for decades. It took a Republican governor, Massachusetts’ Mitt Romney, to finally press for state legislation that offered affordable healthcare insurance for most of his constituency.

Later, Obama seized on this same conserva-

News

2012 were cast for Democratic candidates, then it follows that 21.2 to 28.0 percent of the state’s voters — mainly political progressives who live in urban areas — are effectively disenfranchised.

So if the action is in the Republican Party, let’s crash it. Maybe we can rein in the madness. Or maybe not: The challenge is that there are no Republican candidates left who identify themselves as moderates; every two years Republican officeholders face a crop of challengers who claim to be even more conservative. How far can it go?

If you’re an independent in suburban Winston-Salem or rural Forsyth County, voting in the Republican primary actually presents the opportunity to do more than block bad candidates. Republicans currently hold a 4-3 advantage over Democrats on the seven-member county board, but the Republican majority is split between moderates and conservatives, with the two moderates frequently voting with the board’s three Democrats.

The board’s moderate Republican-Democrat coalition effectively holds the balance of power over the conservative Republicans.

The board’s governing majority has lifted the county’s debt limit, authorized bond spending on the long overdue downtown library and is entertaining a proposal for a major school bond this year.

The action is in the Republican primary for District B, with four candidates vying for three seats in the suburban-rural doughnut district. If the moderate Dave Plyler manages to retain his seat against a challenge from Bill Whiteheart, a former commissioner, his victory will prevent conservatives from gaining clout and perhaps slowing down investment in schools, parks and other critical needs.

There’s a vote that truly matters, and one a progressive independent should be proud to cast.

Up Front

by Jordan Green Danielle Allen, a political theorist at Harvard University, made a persuasive argument in the Sunday Washington Post that the danger to democracy and human decency posed by Donald Trump can only be stopped by a coordinated effort across party lines.

First, she urges John Kasich and Ben Carson to drop out of the presidential race so Republicans can coalesce around Marco Rubio.

Second, she recommends that Democrats switch their registration so they can help block Trump by voting for Rubio in the primary.

As a registered independent in North Carolina, I can already vote in the Republican primary.

And much as I have been relishing the opportunity to have my say in the Hillary-Bernie intramural that is electrifying the Democratic contest, I’ve found myself seriously considering voting a Republican ballot on March 15 and casting a vote for Rubio.

There are some serious downsides, and I’m far from decided on whether this is the right course of action. For one, I can’t think of a single issue on which I agree with Rubio, and he could wind up being the worst warmonger of the Republican field. More importantly, a Rubio vote for me would concede that there’s no hope for advancement in this election, only to shore up the deeply flawed status quo to prevent my country from going down in flames.

But it got me thinking that maybe progressive independents should be voting in more Republican primaries. As has been highlighted in the North Carolina’s ongoing saga of court-ordered redistricting (See Citizen Green on page 14), the maps are effectively rigged to ensure that Republicans hold 10 out of 13 congressional seats. If you consider that 44.3 percent of all ballots in North Carolina’s 2014 congressional races and 51.0 percent of all ballots in

When healthcare mattered to the GOP

triad-city-beat.com

FRESH EYES

IT JUST MIGHT WORK

15

Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Cover Story

by Brian Clarey • photos by Amanda Salter The palace of Don Ames sits a bit back from the road, a two-bedroom cottage on the downslope that runs along a half-acre lot in a fine neighborhood of middle-class aspirations.

Like a lot of homes on the block, it came up in the 1940s during a period of postwar earnestness, and save for an extension to the basement put in at some point in the 1970s and a side deck of dubious lineage, not a much has been done in the way of home maintenance.

Besides a bit of termite damage and a few issues with the roof, Don’s looking at a complete interior teardown and rebuild, plus there’s that 75-year-old plumbing and the old-school fuse box in the basement that will both need upgrades before the place becomes anything resembling a finished home.

Still, it’s a palace: the first place Don’s had to call his own in all the years I’ve known him. His ownership of this magnificent wreck — which I would have warned just about any of my other friends against — is the most wonderful news I’ve heard in years.

“I don’t know why you say that,” he says. “I’m nothing special.”

That’s not exactly true.

When I first met Don, almost seven years ago, he was living outside — a tent in the woods along the downtown tracks of the Norfolk-Southern Line, in the derelict space known informally as the Freeman Mill Campground, and even less formally as the downtown hobo camp.

That’s where Don lived.

16

It used to be a bad idea to go out to the homeless camp too late in the day — most everyone was drunk by early afternoon and by sunset, I had been told, things sometimes got a little

stabby.

So it was early on a bright fall morning when I first met Don Ames.

Before the Downtown Greenway cut through this wild patch of post-industrial wilderness, more than a dozen of Greensboro’s itinerants took up refuge in the acute triangle formed by the Freeman Mill Road overpass and the railroad tracks.

The men lived on one side of a fence tangled with wiry vine; I remember seeing a structure made from castoff roofing materials, with architecture similar to that of a concession stand at a high school ballpark.

The women — Cotton, who at that point had survived 16 years outside, nine of them in a wheelchair, and the Korean woman who kept a yard of raked gravel outside her tent — allowed Don to set up his orange and yellow Walmart tent within their sphere.

He had been outside for about a year at that point, and the short version of how it happened is fairly mundane: About four hours after moving to Greensboro in 2008 looking for work, he had all his belongings, including every single form of ID, stolen from a room he had taken at the Greensboro Inn. The long version has chapters on his days as a fireman on Navy ships, years in a Michigan machine shop and time in Alaska, where a bad winter just might kill a man.

And yet, in a dangerous life, the biggest setback he had ever encountered came in Greensboro, in his 48th year.

With no connections in town and no paperwork to prove his own existence, Don soon found himself in need of the services of places like the Urban Ministry, where even from the beginning he spent as much time volunteering as he did partaking.

Don liked to keep busy. And his skill set, which included all manner of carpentry and shop work, public safety and survivalism, was, I thought at the time, formidable.

The previous owner cuastomized the mailbox in front of Don Ame

Even then he had some power tools rigged to a small solar panel out at the campground.

It’s ironic that this guy is homeless, I remember thinking, because if he had the materials and the tools, he could probably build himself a house.

triad-city-beat.com

es’ house; he decided to keep it, along with the yard art and tree ornaments. But everything else has to go.

“You said I was happy,” Don says to me now.

We’re in a coffee shop in College Hill, talking face-to-face for the first time in at least five

years.

“I didn’t know how to take that,” he says. “I wasn’t happy out there.”

Don’s been pushing against the upwardly mobile curve since the day we first met. He would do another three years on the street, during which time he would earn a modicum of relative fame.

After a time, Don had collected enough aluminum cans and odd-job payoffs to set up a woodshop out there by

the tracks, and local media got wind of this perfect bootstrap story just in time for the 2011 holiday season. North Carolina Public Radio’s “The Story” did a piece on him that year with an emphasis on his solar panels.

The media coverage, he said, gave him some leverage with the Veteran’s Administration, which was eventually

17

Cover Story

Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016

able to help him get a valid, government-issue ID. With this key piece of his personal infrastructure in place, things started moving in the right direction.

In 2013 he ran a successful IndieGoGo campaign, raising $1,500 for more solar panels and a scroll saw. By then he was inside — living in the backyard shed of the house he now owns, a major turning point in his life.

It wasn’t much, more of a workshop than a living space, but for the first time in almost five years, Don lived within four walls and under a roof, behind a door with a lock.

It meant his tools wouldn’t get stolen any longer, that he could sleep through the night away from the rowdy denizens of the Freeman Mill Campground. He started making small pieces and selling commissioned ones, picking up occasional construction work. The picture of his life was becoming more clear.

And that’s when New Age Builders came calling.

That, too, was a benefit of his newfound notoriety, but was also possible only because he now had a phone.

“They called me,” Don says. “I don’t know how they got my number. They said, ‘You want a job, be here at such and such a time.’ I was there.”

Jan. 17, 2014, he says. That was his first day of full-time, regular work since he got to Greensboro in 2008.

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Above: He’s already got space in the house for his woodworking. / Bottom: A Don Ames clock.

In the prefab workshop of New Age Builders, off Gate City Boulevard and tucked under the very same train tracks that run east past the old Freeman Mill camp, Don Ames leans over a mahogany door he’s building for a homeowner in Oak Ridge who’s converting an old tobacco barn into a living space. He’s got a measuring tape in his hand.

It’s a custom job — “The doorway is a trapezoid,” Don explains, and he plans to shave it down to fit after he constructs it.

“Four eighths here, four eighths there,” he says to Tol Rahlan, who’s also on the job. “It has to be thirteen sixteenths.” Don gestures with the extended tape to the piece of square dowel in Rahlan’s hands. “That one is too small. If it were one sixteenth of an inch longer we’d be set. But I don’t have a wood stretcher.”

Rahlan, a Montagnard who came to Greensboro in June 2002 from Cambodia, has been with New Age for seven years. He’s of an age that he still remembers a little of the war, the explosions near his village, the American troops who would give him candy.

Don pulls two new mahogany dowels from the store, measures twice and cuts once. Rahlan shapes them on a miter saw as Don lines the upper portion of the door with epoxy.

Together they wedge the framing pieces in place, secure them with clamps and tap the last of it down with soft hammer blows.

“Glass is gonna go in there,” Don says, “so it’s gotta be flat.”

After a few pops with the nail gun, the day’s work is done.

“It’s been 25 or 30 years since I did any cabinet work,” Don says later in the coffee shop down the street. “But I told them: ‘I’m real interested, and I’m willing to learn

whatever you’ve got to teach.”

A roof and a door. A regular paycheck. Things were coming together.

And then he got the house.

“That shed was just a stepping stone,” Don says, saying it like he means it, has known it the whole time.

His residency in the shed came from the generosity of a man Don identifies only as Henry, who would come check up on Don when he was still living outside. When the greenway broke ground, displacing Don and everyone else at the Freeman Mill camp, Henry offered the shed behind his mother’s house.

“I told him I’d take it on one condition,” Don says. “[I said,] ‘I won’t tell anyone where I live and you don’t either.’

“I didn’t want the homeless community coming around,” he explains. “I’ve been there; I know that lifestyle. I didn’t want it around my house.”

When Henry’s mother died, he made Don an offer he couldn’t refuse: He’d sell him the house for $15,000, and with a small down payment would finance the deal himself, without interest.

He had a condition, too: The house would come as is.

And the picture wasn’t pretty.

A crooked spiderweb of wooden beams holds the roof aloft over the front porch of Don Ames’ house. Here the concrete is taken up by spare pieces of wood, tools, food and water dishes for his dogs, Biscuit and Buddy.

In the front yard, shoots of fennel volunteer from the weeds of a raised garden bed, long neglected. In the side yard, below the sagging deck off the kitchen, 50 old tires stand in sloppy columns.

“When I get to it,” Don says, “I’m gonna build out that deck for a hot tub. But that comes later. Right now I can walk on it, but I don’t trust it.”

Inside, where Don’s torn the walls down to studs, there’s a new-ish refrigerator, a decent double sink and a perfectly serviceable stove.

“I’m gonna go with LED lighting in here,” Don says.

He’ll take out the old-fashioned wooden cabinetry and the wall by the front door and move some of the appliances around.

“What I’m gonna do is put the stove over where that door is,” he says. “I’m gonna close that door off.”

But those projects are further down the line in Don’s linear equation. First came a structural issue: a bad joist repair made during the basement renovation in the 1970s. He jacked up the foundation himself, alone, in the basement.

“It was a pretty eerie feeling,” he says. “You hear crack, creak, pop. I figured, I’m all by my lonesome — I better have an escape route if it starts to come down.”

Later there’s the gradual installation of more modern plumbing and wiring. He’s already laid a couple hundred feet of copper wire and should need a couple hundred more.

But now there’s a problem with the wood.

cut that lock yet.”

The house is the biggest project he’s ever taken on, and he knows he’s looking at a couple years before he’s through. He’s tries to keep the grand scheme in sight.

“My plan is to have it finished the same time I make the last payment on it,” he says. “Then save up my money, find another house and do it again.”

After checking out of Don’s palace I make a few turns and find myself at what used to be the Freeman Mill Homeless Camp, now a fenced-off addendum to this short leg of the Downtown Greenway.

I park nearby, then hop down the broken-off roadway, across the small creek made in the bed of the railroad track. The greenway runs clear through the spot where the men’s camp used to be. The trees that hid the tents of Don, Cotton and the rest have been chipped down to mulch, with nothing left in the way of archaeological

remains.

The city’s been clearing out homeless camps this winter, yet there’s one homesteader tucked back among the few trees left standing, territory marked by a domed blue tarp and windscreen blocking its entrance.

Don says he hasn’t been by the camp since he left for the shed. But his time out here took its toll. He’s 57, and though he somehow looks younger than he did when we first met — brighter in the eyes, more vibrant skin — he is also getting older, and his years on the street will soon take their due. This problem, too, just another to be solved, has its place in Don’s linear equation.

“For right now, I know where I want to be,” he says.

“I’ll have the house paid in 2017, then I’ll start addressing medical issues.

“I know where I want to be,” he says again, “and what it’s gonna take to get there. It’s just a matter of making the right sacrifices. The choices I make now, I’m ensuring I don’t go back.”

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Behind the pulled drywall in the living room, Don discovered profound termite damage, affecting window frames and load-bearing wall studs running down to the basement. He’ll have to borrow some heavy equipment to make the repair, which would go faster if he had more money, more time, more help. But these things are still in short supply. He expects he’ll go it alone, like always.

Once the foundation is secure, he’ll be able to move forward with the roof. Then it’s the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, one thing at a time.

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle,” he says. “I’m getting the pieces together. Eventually it’s gonna be a pretty picture.”

Sooner or later he’ll get to the front yard, where he’ll shape up the landscaping, remove a couple trees and cut a French drain along the side of the house. He’ll haul off the tires on the other side and build a raised bed for his garden of solar panels in the backyard. The shed is still back there, hidden behind clotheslines strung with Don’s clothes for the impending workweek, abandoned since he took on the main house.

“I lost the key for it,” Don says. “I don’t have the heart to

Top left: The shed where Don once lived stands locked behind his new place — he says he lost the key and doesn’t have the heart to cut the lock. / Top right: An extended basement circa 1978 is the only work that’s been done on the house since it was built in the 1940s. / Bottom left: A wall mural from the previous owner. / Bottom middle: Termite damage will slow the initial phases of construction. / Bottom right: Don filled the yard with solar panels when he lived in the shed. He plans to make a bed for them, and add enough to power his workshop.

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE A gathering spot in a neighborhood with few of them

by Eric Ginsburg

I

f you live on the upper end of Elm Street — which There’s a mammoth shoots north from downtown Greensboro screen that is the focal past Cone Health, through the tony Irving Park point of the main dinneighborhood and past the Golden Gate/State Street ing area, which when shopping area that’s making a comeback, across Cone Kacie and I showed up Boulevard and curving between parts of Buffalo Lake on Sunday night feaand beyond a regiment of developments — there aren’t tured the Wake Forest too many dining options. v. Boston College men’s The neighborhoods near the Canterbury School and basketball game. As if Lake Jeannette aren’t totally forgotten, and certainly that weren’t enough, couldn’t be considered underdeveloped compared to a wall of televisions most other edges of the city. Besides several chains by the bar broadcasts and a grocery store, the intersection of Pisgah Church about a dozen other Road and North Elm Street does support a few quality channels, most of them food options, including Mediterraneo, Santa Fe Mexituned to sports as well. can Grill and Fuji Sushi Hibachi. But being that far from But we’re in the area other dining options in the city, it’s easy to grow weary north of Irving Park, of the options and choose something like Barberitos most of which would or Bojangles rather than driving for — by Greensboro prefer to think of itself standards — what feels like a long time. as an extension of the I’d know: My girlfriend Kacie lives in that part of the golf course neighborERIC GINSBURG The chicken tikka tacos at Elm St. Grill are a prime example of the city, and if we’re getting dinner together, she generally hood rather than an complexities of the restaurant in a far north shopping strip in Greensboro. comes back down towards me, at the edge of downoutlying residential town. If we’re at her apartment and we want to go out area that is slipping Chicken in barbecue sauce and served with bacon. for a drink, our best options are the ABC store or openinto the county. And as such, this couldn’t truly be Around halftime, I might order the overflowing ing the refrigerator. Dinner and drinks? We’re going to called a sports bar, at least not in the form we find chicken tikka tacos, which are tasty but don’t carry the Melt, where we pull up barstools and end up talking to them elsewhere in the city. mouthwatering flavor of the Indian entrée here. Kacie beer man Charles Eric Jones half the time.

The closest comparison I can find is to imagine a ogled the basket of fried pickles, and if we’d come We love that place; it’s just that it’d be nice to switch version of Jake’s Billiards combined with Mellow Mushto spend a few hours pulling for Wake, she would’ve it up and there aren’t any other options nearby. Or so room and 1618 Downtown, though significantly smaller partaken. we thought. than any of the above and with dimmer lights (at least I’d skip the jambalaya, which lacked the Cajun People had been telling me about the quality sandthis evening) and tables, booths and barstools taking inspiration to pull off the flavorful Creole dish, but wiches up at Elm Street Grill, a place described to me up floor space rather than pool tables.

I’m eager to try the more straight-up shrimp-coconut as somewhere local moms would dip in for lunch and You’re probably pretty confused right now, and that curry, a sweet and spicy Indian entrée that comes with grab a panini, wrap or salad. I forgot about it, actumight be my fault, but it’s also partly because I don’t steamed basmati rice and naan. ally, until the owners showed up at a Yelp event in know that Elm Street Grill does have a local equivaI foolishly thought I had a sense of Elm Street Grill Winston-Salem, where a mishmash of restaurateurs lent. based on other people’s descriptions. Then I figured offered samples of their cuisine. Situated by the door I mean, this place is small enough that there’s one I’d obtained a much truer sense by trying some of the inside Flywheel co-working space in the Innovation stall and one urinal in the men’s bathroom, but a large food and meeting the people behind it at an event in Quarter, where Yelper Holly Kelton TV over the sink plays HGTV with the a neighboring city. But after showing up, dining and booked the party a few months back, sound on. Maybe that speaks to the trying to relay the experience, I’ve realized that Elm the owners of Elm Street Grill offered upscale-meets-casual vibe here more Visit Elm St. Grill at Street Grill is likely one of those places that you just up fantastic chicken tikka masala. than anything.

3606 N. Elm St. (GSO) have to take in first hand.

Wait, what?

I would go to Elm Street Grill for And that’s probably a good thing. or at elmstgrill.com.

Somehow in the description fans the same reasons I go to Jake’s: to eat had given me, I’d missed that the quality bar food and watch a game restaurant serves a little Indian fare. in an environment that somehow The business name doesn’t exactly hint that it provides manages to welcome fandom without succumbing to Pick of the Week anything unique, either, and when Kacie went once the douchey vibe, spilled beer and subpar cuisine that Restaurant week @ Downtown Winston (W-S), all years ago with friends, she only remembered enjoying generally accompanies it. weekend the wings.

I’d order the chicken tikka masala entrée, the deliPrix-fixe menus range from $20-30 with delicious The realization stunned me enough that I ignored cious lettuce-wrap appetizer with minced chicken and steals like Hutch & Harris’s sriracha-seared flounder the other vendors that evening, save for the ones Thai chili sauce or one of the paninis if I came here with served over mushroom risotto, or enough braised handing out booze, and posted up by Elm Street Grill Kacie on a date. If I came to watch a game I’d go with pork shank with sweet potato ragout to share at for more. But when I showed up in person, I’d be surthe wings, the Southern Comfort burger with bacon Sweet Potatoes. Visit downtownws.com for a list of prised again. and pimiento cheese and fried green tomato that our participating resturants and their specials.

Elm Street Grill is actually sort of a sports bar. server said is her favorite menu item, or the Wrangler

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If you swore off tequila, the mango margarita (right) at Tequila Mexican Restaurant in Winston-Salem is an easy transition back.

ERIC GINSBURG

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tequila, and I’d dismissed all of them and what better way to reintroduce it just because of a few nondescript to your lineup than a venue bearing its associations with a lower shelf, caraname, where you can order a tequila mel-colored variety. By switching to the drink that masks the taste? clear blanco and plata (white and silver) Tequila, a Mexican restaurant not far tequilas, I successfully bypassed any from Wake Forest University in Winnegative sensory associations. ston-Salem, offers margarita specials Reposado tequila is generally more five days a week. It peaks on Wednesexpensive, but for those who may have days, when mango or blue margaritas naively dismissed the liquor, in might be go for $2.50, and if you’re trying to the way to go. This rested variety (two slowly ease back into tequila, start with months to a year in an oak barrel) is the mango. It’s a frozen marg (meaning known for having a more mellow taste the ice is blended rather than whole) and being gentle on the palate while that tastes great and without a noticeretaining its blue agave character. If it able tequila flavor. stays in the barrel for more than a year, Feeling a little more adventurous the tequila is classified as añejo. Though on my second try, I ordered the blue the oro (gold) denomination that margarita, a cocktail with blue Curacao turned me off is similar in shade, it isn’t liqueur that comes on the rocks where actually aged — oro the tequila flavor shines tequila like the Jose through.

Visit Tequila Mexican Cuervo Especial that But by now, I’m fine, Restaurant at 2802 I grew to disdain gets unfazed by the taste of its hue from added Reynolda Road (W-S). what’s likely tequila oro colorants and flavoragain (that’s what most ings, not oaken casks. restaurants pour in their I’m not just telling you this because margaritas). I could almost take on the you (or a friend) need to hear it, but in $2 lime margaritas here, sold Sunday honor of my brief vacation last week to through Tuesday, but at that price, I Mexico, the birthplace of tequila. But might be tempted to drink a couple and you don’t need time off work to properrenew my old sentiments towards the ly enjoy this frequently sidelined liquor, spirit.

Cover Story

If there’s one liquor that people swear off more than others after a bad experience, it’s

by Eric Ginsburg tequila.

Some say that whiskey makes them combative, or put rum to the side after the sugar cane drink induced vomiting. Plenty of people claim they don’t like gin in general, just one of the reasons that boring ol’ vodka is so prevalent. But tequila may hold the worst reputation of all (and increasingly so as the oft-scorned whiskey makes a craft resurgence).

Everyone probably has a friend who, if you order a margarita pitcher to share, will make other arrangements, likely offering an explanation that references “that one time” or a bad “phase in college,” and chances are also high that someone at the table will make reference to the idea that tequila makes you horny.

All of that is mostly ridiculous. And yet, I’m guilty.

My story with the agave drink is most closely aligned with the “bad phase” narrative, where Jose Cuervo wore out his welcome and was never asked back.

In my humble yet decent liquor cabinet at home, there are a few kinds of whiskey, gin and vodka, a little scotch, two types of rum and a couple liqueurs. But, as a force of habit, I still don’t reach for tequila.

I lifted my unofficial and ill-informed ban on the liquor a few years ago when a friend visited from Providence, RI and insisted I try Espolon Blanco. It helped that the clear tequila has slick marketing with Day of the Dead-style drawings that looks pretty metal. I occasionally accepted the status symbol Patron, and tried Hornitos Plata when offered. Slowly I started to realize I’d been full of it.

I didn’t just come around to tequila by reintroducing it slowly, like dangerous wolves back into the wild, or by experimenting with higher shelf purveyors; I’d switched to an entirely different type of tequila.

See, there are categories for types of

C r i mi n a l • Tra ffi c • DW I

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE Hip-hop concert showcases North Carolina talent on the verge

by Jordan Green

T

he hands shooting into the air in front of the stage at the Blind Tiger to represent fans with good GPAs stood as a fair indication that this was not your ordinary hip-hop showcase.

The show of hands came as a response to an offthe-cuff digression in principal organizer Torey “Viva La Fresh” Evans’ spiel.

“If you are an artist, if you do spoken word, if you’re a fashion designer and you haven’t been on stage yet, raise you’re hand,” he said. “If you’ve got a good GPA, raise your hand. What’s your GPA? 3.5?

Any 4.0s?”

Evans could be forgiven for the interjection: The third annual Black 2 Hip Hop showcase in Greensboro crammed roughly 20 acts into a five-hour block on Feb. 20, surveying some of the most vetted and promising talent from across North Carolina, ranging from slam-style, spoken-word artists to eccentric indie rappers and classic Dirty South hardcore emcees.

The GPA survey marked a pivot point from the indie segment into the hard rap finale. Will Wildfire, a Charlotte-based artist who landed a slot at South

by Southwest next month, upended conventions.

With a wide-brimmed straw hat covering an unruly pile of dreadlocks and dressed in a green army jacket, he treated the audience at the Blind Tinger to raw, sometimes profanity-laden R&B vocals, while bashing out chords on an electric guitar almost punk-rock style.

Wildfire’s set was received with earnest applause, but the artist who followed clearly felt the need to ramp up the energy level in the room.

Tange Lomax, an artist from High Point whose devastating flow and electric stage presence belied her diminutive physicality, remarked at the beginning of her set: “Y’all been too chill for me.”

“How many of y’all believe that your dreams are major?” she asked before lifting the audience with collective affirmation: “N****, we major-major.” Running through three tracks, she dispatched spitfire raps over monster thudding beats, while stalking the stage from one side to the other and getting into people’s faces. Vigilantly guarding against any possible lapse of audience engagement, Lomax even broke from her flow once to call someone out individually. “You with the afro,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m f***in’ wit’ you.”

From that point, the all-male procession of emcees went hard all the way, from Josh “Prince” Jones through Roger Benso, Austin Royale and into the finale with JK the Reaper and his crew. With DJ Rio, aka Mario Sutton, setting the floor, the MO was to get the crowd as hyped as possible.

Black 2 Hip Hop paraded roughly 20 acts — rappers, spoken-word artists and emcees, including Micah Williams (above) — across the Blind Tiger stage over the course of the five-hour show.

“We about to rage in the front,” Rio warned before Royale’s set. “So if you ain’t ready to rage in this b****, move to the back.”

Whereas Lomax had leveraged aspiration to draw the audience into a collective experience, Royale tapped into shared adversity, pulling the audience together and then taking their energy and throwing it back. Someone flung a spray of water from a plastic bottle into the bouncing scrum of bodies in front of the stage.

“Austin Royale was the super rage,” Rio quipped during the final set changeover. “Now, JK the Reaper is the epic rage.”

The collective talent showcased by Black 2 Hip Hop exemplifies the age-old dilemma of North Carolina’s place in the music universe going back to the golden age of string bands in the 1920s: Its strategic location on the map lends itself to quickly absorbing outside styles while perpetually remaining in the shadow of other cultural capitals. As Viva La Fresh mused in the green room before the showcase, much of North Carolina hip-hop is influenced by the harder beats and edgier lyrics of the Southern sound

JORDAN GREEN

based in Atlanta, while some artists here draw inspiration from the more melodic approach of Maryland hip hop.

Edward Koomson, a Greensboro recording engineer and Viva’s partner in producing Black 2 Hip Hop, agreed that Atlanta projects a strong influence over North Carolina hip hop.

“We’ve been called the Gate City for a lot of

Pick of the Week Triad Area Medical Orchestra @ UNC Schools of the Arts (W-S), Sunday, 3 p.m.

UNCSA conductor Christopher James Lees partnered with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to create the Triad Area Medical Orchestra last summer. After months of rehearsal, they present their first-ever concert, with a repertoire consisting of Beethoven, Dvorak, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius. Medical professionals from around the Piedmont cut loose (well, as loose as you can with Brahms) to unite in classical harmony. Hopefully your gynecologist is not on tuba. Admission is free; visit the event’s Facebook page for more details.

If there is one artist that could be described as the “prospect” on the lineup, it would probably be Greensboro’s Micah Williams, Lisborg said.

The mellower tonality of Williams’ music suggested violet hues instead of glaring red or stark black, and when he came onstage wearing a powder-blue Carolina jacket and a Jean-Michel Basquiat T-shirt, a flock of camera phones went into the air and the female quotient near the stage rose markedly.

The strangled guitar sound buoying his signature track, “Wild Youth,” gave Williams a platform to make an instant impression. It was a party and a cautionary tale at the same time.

“Young kid, crazy world that we livin’ in,” he rapped. “No, I’m not givin’ in/ No, I’m not givin’ in/ Hey, hey, how you feelin’, kids?/ Hey, hey, how you livin’, kids?”

For his final track, Williams invited the audience onstage, where the concert turned into a happy mosh pit with an explosion of confetti.

“I’m all about having fun,” Williams said.

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years,” he said. “We have everything here — rock, electric, EDM. In my opinion, the reason we haven’t been identified is because we’ve had so many different sounds. Everybody that goes from New York City to Florida, they go through us. North Carolina is a melting pot.”

Viva and Koomson, along with publicist Wolfgang Lisborg, are intent on changing that. This year, they winnowed down the roster to artists ready for primetime by handpicking acts that have proved themselves through exposure and recognition in outlets like XXL, the Source, the Fader and 2DopeBoyz. Similarly, Niya Wells, a Greensboro-based R&B singer-songwriter, has received airplay on the BBC. “I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but we won’t stop until we make it,” said Viva, who developed as an understudy to Waleed Coyote on 102 JAMZ. “I can put together an amazing show,” he added. “I can make people understand that if we come together we can do something amazing.”

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE Ruby Slipper kicks through a glass ceiling

by Joanna Rutter

A

tangible silence hung in the dark void in the third-floor theater of the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts on Feb. 19 as about 30 people gathered around a large mat of paper covered in dirt and pieces of trash, watching — spellbound — as two dancers writhed around in the mess, the only noises the sound of clumps of dirt hitting the floor, the crinkle of plastic bags and their heavy breathing. It was a dance performance so intense, so bizarre, it could only be happening here at the Ruby Slipper Fringe Festival.

Intimate performances and envelope-pushing art abound at Ruby Slipper Fringe in Winston-Salem, which runs through Feb. 28. The festival features mostly local female artists from disciplines spanning poetry, fine arts, dance, storytelling, theater and more, showing new or in-development works in 90-minute slots, each followed by an “artist talkback,” in which the audience is invited to offer feedback to nurture the process.

Women’s voices are underrepresented in the arts, co-founder Cara Hagan said when explaining the purpose of a female-only indie showcase. The festival amplifies those voices, and also allows amateur artists to perform to an audience differing from the usual COURTESY PHOTO Karola Luttringhuas (center) of Alban Elved crafted a dance piece for the Ruby Slippers Fringe theatergoing crowd in the Triad. Amy da Luz, the other Festival that is performed on a patch of dirt. co-founder, said, “We were tired of just doing theater for theater people, just dance for dance people.” story’s always been in here,” she said, gesturing to her “Adam-mah,” — a play-on-words of the Genesis Pulling that off was no small administrative feat. The chest. Her confession drew applause from the packed story in the Bible and the Hebrew word “adamah” amount of names in the program — almost 70 sepahouse. meaning “earth” — was an intimate and invasive perrate works are listed, and some pieces involve multiple Before the festival, local poet Julie Kolischak’s homformance, where almost every audience member was performers — speaks to the organizational moxie of da age to her Quaker and Baptist grandmothers had yet given a participatory role. One participant was even Luz and Hagan. to be shared with anyone. picked up and lifted off the ground in a bear hug, test“I’ve got 8,000 emails in my inbox right now,” da “I’ve had lots of work on the shelf, and being able to ing the boundaries between performer and audience.

Luz said, laughing. She said that she and Hagan began share it is part of the process of writing,” she said.

Though in process, touring works like “adam-mah” talking about an inclusive environment for female artWith a TED talk entitled “The Empowerment of the are well-suited to this kind ists in the fall of 2015, and Feminine Spirit,” a dance piece called “Why It Gotta of space, the main purpose it “just kinda happened” in Experience Ruby Slipper Fringe at the Be Black” and excepts from “The Honey Sutra,” all of Ruby Slipper Fringe is in a matter of a few months. on Ruby Slipper’s lineup for this upcoming weekend, Milton Rhodes Arts Center in downtown giving a voice to first-time “We had no idea what relatively unknown female artists promise to carry performers, Hagan said. would happen,” da Luz Winston-Salem beginning at 7 p.m. on the energy of the festival to its final performance on “We’re inviting women said. The lineup is unThursday and Friday, and beginning at 1 who hadn’t felt like they Sunday. abashedly funkier than p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The festival had a space,” she said, “I don’t ever take it for granted [that] someone took typically found in the a chance on me, back when I first started acting,” da adding, “My mom is peris free.

Visit rubyslipperfringe.org for the Triad, but that hasn’t deLuz said.

“This is my way of giving back.” forming!” terred audiences. “We’ve full schedule.

Sarah Jenkins, one of the had a full house both artist managers, said the nights,” da Luz said. “It Pick of the Week festival dismantles false ideas that the arts are elabomakes me want to weep.” rate and reserved for only an elite few.

Gerry-Rigged film screening and discussion @ Paper Lantern Theatre Company, which da Luz “Here, people are given such free rein,” she said. “It’s founded, is the official sponsor of the festival, which Congregational United Church of Christ (GSO), a safer place.” is supported by a grant from the North Carolina Arts Thursday, 7 p.m.

On Feb. 19, the poetry and storytelling showcase Council. Each artist submitted a grant proposal for Common Cause NC hosts a screening of Gerryfeatured a diverse lineup, including a Native-American their piece.

Rigged: Why Your Vote Might Not Matter, a 2011 CNN heritage piece, a poem on food, grief and beliefs, a It would be interesting to read the grant proposal for documentary hosted by Drew Griffin that looks at hilarious tale of airplane misadventure from a former “adam-mah” by Karola Lüttringhaus of the Alban Elved gerrymandering in North Carolina. The film will be Piedmont Airlines flight attendant and a multimedia Dance Company from Winston-Salem, which comfollowed by a discussion with Greensboro Mayor piece involving clowning about a Cuban immigrant bined dance with audience interaction and a surprising Nancy Vaughan, state Rep. Pricey Harrison and learning her way around American culture. amount of dirt. former state Sen. Don Vaughan. The event is free.

“This is my first time ever doing spoken word,” Char“Well, it’s a Karola piece,” Hagan said. “You’re not For more information, call 919.836.0027. lene Hunt said during the artist feedback portion. “My going to see a Karola piece where she doesn’t go all in.”

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Touring Theatre of North Carolina presents the

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THE CROWN AT THE CAROLINA THEATRE

Fun & Games

February 19 (pay as you can), and 20 at 8 pm; February 26 and 27 at 8 pm 310 S. Greene St. • Downtown Greensboro

A $1.00 theatre Facility Fee and sales tax is added to the price of each ticket.

There is an additional $3.50 added to online purchases.

Please consider investing in our Creative Campaign to help bring more great works to the stage. Donate on our website ttnc.org or by mail.

PO Box 9733, Greensboro, NC 27429

All She Wrote

For tickets call 336-333-2605 or visit carolinatheatre.com

Shot in the Triad

Tickets are general admission: $ 20: Adults $ 17: for groups of 10 or more $ 15: Students with school ID

Games

Over the Edge or You Done Me Wrong, is scheduled to run days after Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year. However, this production is clearly NOT a valentine.

Rather it is a combination of pithy short stories centering on failed relationships and disappointments with characters definitely in need of therapy.

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

26

FUN & GAMES

W

by Anthony Harrison

hen I was in sixth grade, I ascended to the Guilford County spelling bee, only to muff the word “possessed.” I dropped the first S. I wrote it over and over again both ways, and I just couldn’t get it right. I could spell any other word the remaining students faced, but

I missed mine.

My mistake haunts me to this day.

Still, when my friend Rachel invited me to Sip ‘n Spell, an adult spelling bee held at the Daily Planet Café in Raleigh, I jumped at the chance.

Despite my pre-pubescent failure, I remained confident in my abilities, even when I was told the contest was a science-related bee. Thankfully, we had some ringers on our team: Etsy forum moderator Rob, personal trainer Sean and naturopathic physician Dee. We were clearly unstoppable.

The Daily Planet Café sits in the corner of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown.

It’s a cleanly modern spot: Glass front, blonde wood panels offsetting the gray walls, sleek lines elsewhere.

The kitchen staff seemed to be closing shop, but a member of the competition chowed on a tantalizing burger. And it wouldn’t be an adult trivia contest without beer.

Team names are important in bouts like this. We were tasked with defeating Dirty Spellions, Alcoholics Unanimous, Spells Like Teen Spirit, ExSpelliarmus, Spellicans, Chicks with Baculums and local Scrabble team Tetrasporic Triceratops.

We had a rockin’ name backing our talent, the product of me and Rachel brainstorming the week prior: N*SYZYGY, a mashup of allusions to the boy band and the Broadway show, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee — “syzygy” was the fictional moderator’s winning word in her bee.

A little after 7 p.m., emcee Brian Malow explained the rules: The words would increase in difficulty. Spelling, delivered onstage via microphone, could be delivered solo or split between two team members, with duos alternating letters in the word. Spellers could request the definition and for the word to be used in a sentence. Once the word was given, the speller had 30 seconds to begin spelling. Teams could misspell one word without fear of elimination.

Then Malow began the bee.

The first round proceeded smoothly enough. Mineral. Median. Jargon. Bivalve.

On our turn, Sean stepped up to the microphone, nailing “benthic.”

But the first strike went against ExSpelliarmus: “Mathematics.” Their representative missed the i.

On long words, it’s easy to lose track, even if the word in question seems pedestrian.

Spellicans missed their first word, as well: “Porosity.”

First monthly Wake County spelling bee I must admit, I would’ve replaced the s with a c in my guess, too.

Chicks with Baculums confidently ran out of the gate with two members and received “penumbra.”

“Can you say it slower?” one speller asked.

“I don’t know if I can say it any slower,” Malow quipped.

Regardless, they spelled it perfectly.

The next words seemed to fall largely in the category of common misspellings.

WENDY LOVELADY N*SYZYGY (Back row, l-r): Rachel, the author, Dee, Rob. Rachel stepped up to “Celsius.”

Kneeling: Sean.

“I wish I’d paid attention in science,” she laughed. word was of Greek origin, like me.

After a beat, Rachel collected herself and rattled it “Isoseismal,” I said. “I-S-O-S-E-I-S-M-A-L. Isoseisout without fail. mal.”

Spellicans weren’t so lucky with “anemone.” A-N“Correct,” Malow said.

E-M-E-N-Y. Thus, they were knocked out, but received Another huge sigh of relief. I’d let no one down bear-shaped bottles of honey as a consolation prize. tonight.

I was up third for our team, and the words did get Tetrasporic Triceratops fell next on “Escherichia.” harder: Gibbous. Larynx. Atavism. Barophilic. Blasto“I almost looked that up beforehand,” their repregenesis. sentative stated, “but I never thought you’d ask it.”

I strolled up, shaking out my nerves, and Malow read If we spelled the next word correctly, we were the out my word: “Capybara.” winners. Rob and I shortly deliberated between who A sigh of relief and a quick flurry of letters, and I would approach the stage. Rob went ahead. skipped offstage victorious.

“Anencephaly,” Malow said.

Cetology. Peccary. Poliomyelitis. Cytogeny.

Rob laughed and asked for the definition.

Dee was up next.

“Anencephaly,” Wendy Lovelady, the pronouncer and “Pachyderm,” Brian said. museum exhibit and media developer, said. “Congeni“Pachyderm,” Dee replied. “P-A-C-I-D-E-R-M. Pachytal absence of all or part of the brain.” derm.”

N*SYZYGY held its breath.

One strike against us. Dee asked the arbiter, museum “Anencephaly,” Rob said. “A-N-E-N-C-E-P-H-A-L-Y. historian Paul Brinkman, for the correct spelling.

Anencephaly.”

“I was really, really not right,” Dee said, discouraged.

“Your winners tonight: N*SYZYGY,” Malow said.

But by that point, we were one of only three teams We all exploded with enthusiasm. remaining.

“Rock and roll, Rob!” Sean said.

Pneuston. Solifluction.

Dee remained down on herself.

Rob took the stage.

“If I hadn’t been here, we would’ve done better,” she “Bioluminescence,” Malow read. mused.

“Aww, that’s easy,” someone complained from the “Don’t worry about it,” I said, knowingly. “You alpeanut gallery. ways dwell on the one you f*** up.”

Rob took his time.

“Bioluminescence,” he repeated. “B-I-O-L-U-M-I-NPick of the Week E-S…” Ridin’ in a Stutz-Bearcat, Jim Those long words will get you.

Binghamton University Bearcats @ UNCG Spartans “… C-E-N-C-E,” Rob continued.

(GSO), Friday-Sunday He’d come through in the clutch.

Following the crappy weather to start the week, “It’s not a hard word,” he said as he sat down, “but why not celebrate the nice change in the forecast there’s so many bits to it. You have to go bit by bit.” with some of America’s pastime? The Bearcats come Regolith. Ophidiophobia. down from upstate New York, so they’ll surely apHaving gone through each team member, I volunpreciate the mild temps. The second Spartan home teered to go again. stretch of the season starts at 4 p.m. on Friday, with “Isoseismal,” Malow read. games on Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.

A twinge of panic. I isolated the bits. I figured the

‘Sop, Just Sop’ time for one letter to go.

by Matt Jones Across

Down

by Nature

INCENSE • CANDLES • JEWELRY & MORE 336-373-0733 • 414 STATE ST. • GREENSBORO

Playing February 26 – 29 Esoterotica: The Films of David Lynch presents

“Blue Velvet”

10 pm Saturday, February 27 $6 ticket includes FREE BEVERAGE

Opinion Cover Story

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS-7 pm Friday, February 26, Friday Night Fights presents

STREET FIGHTER V

Culture

1 Crude oil cartel 2 Fold, as a flag 3 Uncensored media 4 Detractor 5 Country south of Iran 6 Pigsty, so to speak 7 Part of IPA 8 “The ___ From Ipanema” 9 Minimal effort 10 Acad.

11 New York politico Andrew 12 Hunter of Greek myth 13 Cafe con ___ (Spanish drink) 14 Attire 20 Grow fond of 22 “Where to Invade Next” director Michael 27 “___ Lugosi’s Dead” (Bauhaus song)

28 Ambient noises from appliances, e.g.

29 Place to do your bidding 30 Loses hope 31 “At Last” singer James and namesakes 32 Give a hoot 33 “The Alchemist” novelist ___ Coelho 34 “Lady ___” (Chris de Burgh hit) 37 Lava lamp’s heyday 38 Little brat 39 Fiery Italian landmark 41 Longtime NPR host Diane retiring in 2016 42 “___ tov!”

48 Tokyo rolls 49 Jellied tomato dish 50 “Bleeding Love” singer Lewis 51 Relevant, in legalese 52 Out of style 55 Need a backrub, say 56 Nuisance 57 B, as in bouzouki 58 Knock out 59 Southern stew ingredient 60 “That’s super!”

62 Mao ___-Tung 63 2012 AFTRA merger partner

News

53 Like marked-up textbooks 54 “Epic ___ Battles of History” 57 Onetime mall bookstore name 61 Play-by-play announcer show mixed with a police procedural?

64 “South Park” baby brother 65 “Tap” star Gregory 66 Time out 67 Bygone period 68 Start of a Caesarean trio 69 “Star Trek” captain’s order 70 Joined the table

Up Front

1 Not plugged in 4 Artist’s tribute 10 Bawl out 15 Water filter brand 16 Bedelia of kiddie lit 17 Ham preparer, perhaps 18 Before, to Keats 19 Instant coffee brand that’ll shock you awake?

21 Mark Twain’s real last name 23 Fender Stratocaster inventor’s zodiac sign, aptly 24 Mineral hardness scale 25 “Un momento, ___ favor” 26 Butcher’s cuts 28 Medal of Honor recipient 30 Notwithstanding 35 Lyft alternative 36 Gasoline additive 37 Dir. opposite NNW 40 Big golf competition using devices emitting electromagnetic waves?

43 CBS segment, for short?

44 Military shoulder pad 45 Cosmetics company that sells door-todoor 46 Ties in (with) 47 Actress Catherine ___-Jones 48 Deli hanger 52 “The ___ Is Mightier” (“Celebrity Jeopardy” category on “SNL”)

Eclectic

triad-city-beat.com

GAMES

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’LL FIND...

(ENCORE TOURNAMENT!) $5 venue - $5 entry - CASH PRIZES! 9 p.m. Sunday, February 28 TV CLUB presents

Answers from previous publication.

“Better Call Saul”

Fun & Games

“The Walking Dead”

8 pm Monday, February 29 TV CLUB presents “The X-Files” 10 pm Monday, February 29 TV CLUB presents 8:30 pm Thursday, March 3 Totally Rad Trivia!

336-355-7180

Games

Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee!

2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •

Shot in the Triad

Gourmet Diner

(336) 723-7239

©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

breakfastofcourse.com

All She Wrote

ary’s

27

Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016

Battleground Avenue, Greensboro

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Fun & Games

Culture

Cover Story

Opinion

News

Up Front

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

28

There’s just something about February.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

336-375-1880 • Taylor’s Auto Sales • taylorsautosales.com 10 MINI Cooper

$11,255 Auto, FWD, Leather

13 Hyundai Elantra

$11,500 Auto, FWD, Leather

10 Jeep Liberty

$12,595 Auto, 4WD

08 Ford Edge

$13,500 Limited AWD, Auto, Leather

08 Mercedes-Benz

$16,495 Auto, AWD, Leather

12 BMW 1-Series

$22,995 128i Coupe, 6-Speed, RWD, Leather

Up Front

New Bus Routes - January 2, 2017

triad-city-beat.com

Thank You! Gracias! Je vous remercie! Cảm ơn bạn! 謝謝! Obrigado!

Salamat! Благодарю! Hvala vam! Faleminderit! Vielen Dank!

Gratias ago tibi! Grazie! Mahadsanid! Asante! Ngiyabonga!

News Opinion Cover Story Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

As we move closer to 1/2/2017, we invite you to join us as we take the next step in public transit for Winston-Salem.

Culture

Thank you for attending WSTA’s public meetings on proposed changes to our fixed route bus system. Your voice contributed to the development of what we believe will be a great new transportation system coming in 2017. We listened very closely and made modifications based on some of your concerns about the proposed changes. That information is now available for you in the form of a booklet with routes and turn by turn directions. Pick up a copy at the Clark Campbell Transportation Center or download the information from our website @ wstransit.com.

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Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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ALL SHE WROTE

L

by Nicole Crews

awyer: Have you closed your mother’s safety deposit box yet?

Me: No. Lawyer: Why not?

Me: Every time I cross the border into Davidson County “Welcome to the Jungle” comes on the radio.

Strange things indeed happen when I cross over into the land of my people. I’ve seen Maybe Elvis at the legendary burger joint. I’ve seen an el Camino crash into the Dented Canned Food Store. I’ve been to a tented church where they not only handled snakes but where the kids had to load the snake cages onto the makeshift pulpit.

Most recently I saw an old black lady wearing the exact Halston velour “sweat suit” I gave mother years ago in front of the likker store. She was standing next to a skinny white guy wearing a Green Acres Septic Service sweatshirt. It seemed appropriate.

I’m heading to Southern Sisters to meet, again, appropriately enough, a Southern sister — Beth Sheppard Alexander, my childhood pal and now real estate agent.

Me: Hey, looks like Southern Sisters is closed. Shall we head to the S&S Diner to get our Skeenburgers on?

Beth: Sure.

Me: I’m gonna hit the loo. I love the fact that you have to come outside of the bathroom to wash your hands in front of the entire diner. It’s kind of like a prison toilet.

Beth: I forget about all of these details.

Me: I was thinking about that driving into town past Miss Ruby’s church. You’ve never been to a funeral until you’ve been to a black Masonic funeral. Five solid rows of Eastern Star ladies all decked in white with white hats. That day there were at least 16 adult baptisms in an aquarium-sized tank with non-swimmers. It was like biblical waterboarding. And we were there for at least six hours. I was starving.

Beth: That’s why Miss Ruby carried a piece of chicken around in her purse.

Me: Dang, you’re right! With a Camel no-filter and Luden’s cough drop rub. Ha! My friend Julia still laughs about me talking about Ruby’s chicken-stained loosies.

Beth: I still remember your imitation of mother giving my sister her asthma medicine with a cigarette in her mouth.

Me: Miss Ruby used to reward me for helping hang the sheets on the line with a chicken-stained loosie. I was 8. And I’m still smoking and actually, I had a piece of

Surrendering the box

chicken in my purse when I flew to New York recently. I had one of those, “Holy crap, I’ve become Miss Ruby” moments.

Beth: It happens to all of us.

Me: I had two pieces. My New York host and childhood friend George asked his partner Dave, “Where did this chicken come from?” I said, “My purse.”

The next stop is the bank where I get to pry turn-ofthe-century documents from the oldest vault number in the county. I have an aversion to banks that I think harks back to a post Freshman Fifteen encounter.

Mother: Nicole, I need for you to go to the bank for me.

Me: Mom! You know how I hate going there. There are always a bunch of old ladies who want to talk about how grandmother taught them piano. It takes for-ever.

Mother: Don’t be such a brat and be nice to them.

Me: Oh my gawd Mom, the last time I was there this lady was talking about grandmother playing in different churches and said, “Your grandmother has had her hands on every organ three counties over.”

Mother: Just go.

Me (entering the bank): Hi. Hello. Hi. Yes, she’s fine.

How are you? Hello. Hi. Yes, give her my best.

Black girl I went to junior high with (from across

four, six deep bank lines): Nicole Crews?! Nicole Crews!?

Is that you?

Me: Yep. How’re you doing?

Junior high friend: Girl you are big! What they feeding you down in Chapel Hill?! Dang. It’s like there is two a you. Haha.

Me (backing slowly out of the bank): Haha. Um, gotta run.

Junior high friend (still hollering): Can ya? What you majoring in — chicken and ribs? Haha! Good to see you girl!

Entering the bank to surrender the safety deposit box, I realize that this may be my last trip to this particular institution. It was like closing the PO box — No. 5, no less — and I wax nostalgic. That is until I see the Porky the Pig stickers on my banker’s fingernails.

Me: OMG, are those Porky the Pig? At first I thought they were Donald Trump.

Banker: Girl there is no way I would have Trump on my nails.

Me: You made the right choice for sure.

Banker: You hungry? You’ve been waiting a while. I’ve got some nabs.

Me: Nah, that’s okay. I have a piece of chicken in my purse.

paninis salads small plates craft beer & wine patio daily specials Three friends passionate about exceptional food and entertainment.

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Mary Lacklen • Allen Broach • Bob Weston

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triad-city-beat.com

A DRY-HOPPED HARD CIDER WITH CITRUS AND FLORAL NOTES 72 School House Rd. Mills River, NC 28759 | (828) 595-9940 | BoldRock.com

31

HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

Monday, Feb. 29 at 7 p.m.

FOX8 WGHP Experience the wisdom and insight from one of America’s most trusted newsmen.

High Point University’s Access to Innovators Series

Tom Brokaw

For more than three decades, Tom Brokaw served as the eyes and ears for the nation, covering some of the 20th century’s most historic events as a reporter and trusted news anchor. In a relaxed and entertaining conversation with High Point University President

Distinguished Journalist Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Retired NBC Nightly News Managing Editor and Anchor

Nido Qubein, Brokaw reminisces about his humble roots, his inspiring parents and his best-seller, The Greatest Generation. This intimate evening with

ENJOY THE CONVERSATIONS THAT INSPIRED THE HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY.

one of America’s great storytellers is thoughtprovoking, often poignant and truly memorable.

Originally aired on PBS, Tom Brokaw’s encore appearance runs exclusively on FOX8 WGHP as part of HPU’s ongoing commitment to community service. Don’t miss it!

COLIN POWELL

Monday, January 18

STEVE WOZNIAK

Monday, January 25

SETH GODIN

Monday, February 1

MONDAYS AT 7 P.M. JANUARY 18 MARCH 7 FOX8 WGHP KEN DYCHTWALD

Monday, February 22

WES MOORE

Monday, March 7

JOHN MAXWELL

Monday, February 8

MALCOLM GLADWELL

Monday, February 15

OTHERS IN THE SERIES

CONDOLEEZZA RICE

BONNIE MCELVEEN-HUNTER

Share the conversation. Email communication@highpoint.edu to request a complimentary DVD of the Access to Innovators Series.

AT H I G H P O I N T U N I V E R S I T Y, E V E R Y S T U D E N T R E C E I V E S A N E X T R A O R D I N A R Y E D U C AT I O N I N A N I N S P I R I N G E N V I R O N M E N T W I T H C A R I N G P E O P L E . highpoint.edu